A bend in the road....

    Do you ever do something that you then chide yourself for hours upon hours afterwards? I tend to do this maybe about 5,396 times daily (give or take a few). On Friday I was out and had to get some cash. So I popped over to one on North Bridge and entered my pin. Fairly standard procedure. When I was in the second hand book shop (getting the fifth Harry Potter book - the reason for getting the cash out, I confess) I went to get the money out of my purse. It wasn't there. Do you know that sense of immediate panic that settles? Yeah. Majorly. So then I checked to make sure I still had my debit card. Oh phew. That was still there. I thankfully had a bit of extra cash (intended for other purposes, but ah well), bought the book, and left the shop to get back on the bus. For the rest of the afternoon I kept telling myself how intolerably stupid I was. I mean, who takes out money, retrieves their card, and then leaves the said money in the cash machine?? Stupid stupid stupid stupid. The only thought that slightly comforted me was this: maybe I was able to give a ten pound note to someone who needed it more than I did. And even if it was picked up by some fresher who spent it getting wasted last night....maybe they were blessed somehow. 

    Then Saturday morning woke up. And what a terribly depressing morning it was too....I got three pieces of mail. Two were rejections from applications. Thankfully the third was from a dear friend across the Atlantic on a lovely Island in the north. No matter how many of these 'thank you for your application but you've been unsuccessful' letters I get....it doesn't really get any easier to swallow. 

    So I've caved, I'm going back to work part-time at Starbucks for the time being. At least that's what it feels like I'm doing. I think it's cause I feel like I'm letting myself down. Maybe perfectionist, legalist Grace (yes, I'm aware of the contradiction imbeded in that phrase) needs to learn something about attaching her self-worth to what she does as opposed to who she is in Christ. I've always had such a sense of urgency to DO something, to BE something. Like my time is limited, numbering my days and all that. How is one meant to reconcile that to surrender? My mum had an amazing piece of wisdom for me, 'Sometimes the trial is holding out for your ideal (a job, in this case....a purpose....a validation), and sometimes the trial is holding onto it in the midst of doing something else'.....So back I go to making coffee for a while. I shall choose not to demean myself. Anything He calls us to is a privilage. Oh God give me the strength to keep that attitude.

    These episodes are relatively unconnected....but both part of my life this past week. And both have made me think of something....How rarely do things happen the way that we expect. I mean, I really should know this by now. It's funny how little I do know. But I do know this....I shall choose to believe that this bend holds the best. For this bend is where I have been led. Thus in this bend I shall find the Heart of My Purpose. And He is Faithful....and full of grace for my doubting and bewildered heart. 

     My walks have reminded me a bit from the end of  'Anne of Green Gables' (bear with my slightly romantic tendancies, please). :)
'I shall give life here my best, and I believe it will give its best to me in return. When I left Queen's my future seemed to stretch out before me like a straight road. I thought I could see along it for many a milestone. Now there is a bend in it. I don't know what lies around the bend, but I am going to believe the best does. It has a fascination of its own, that bend, Marilla. I wonder how the road beyond it goes - what checkered light and shadows, what new landscapes, what new beauties, what curves and hills and valleys further on'....'The beauty of it all thrilled Anne's heart, and she greatfully opened the gates of her soul it it. "Dear old world", she murmured, "You are very lovely, and I am glad to be alive in you"....Anne's horizons had closed in since that night she had sat there after coming home from Queen's; but if the path before her feet was to be narrow she knew that flowers of quiet happiness would bloom along it. The joys of sincere work and worthy aspirations and congenial friendship were to be hers; nothing could rob her of her birthright of fancy or her ideal world of dreams. And there was always the bend in the road! "God's in His heaven, all's right with the world!" whispered Anne softly.' 
Amen.
'The road goes ever on and on, down from the door where it began....'


Oh, and I bought a pumpkin. Wooo hooo. Roll on bread, pies, and soup!
Currently listening to Imogen Heap's 'Wait it Out' and Mutemath's 'Goodbye'. My melancholic tendancies have won out.